20th August 2014 – Rob Eavis, Luke Cafferty, Dave Harley, Simon Gant, Brendan Sloan (SUSS)
It is a rare occurrence to enter a cave with such surety that you will set foot on new ground this evening, and even less so knowing it’s going to be big! With this excitement present we eagerly entered the cave ready for a long trip.
On the way down we were finally joined by Brendan who had made tracks from work to get to us so quickly. I think Pilgrims Way was arduous for everyone, as although there were many hands, it also meant there as lots of gear – SRT kits, bolting kit, 70m rope, DistoX and PDA survey gear, and full photographic kit.
However the monotonous crawling wasn’t going to be the most demanding aspect of the journey with these bags, that was always going to be the Crusader Squeezes. To accomplish the task involves bags being passed between people through each of the squeezes, the hardest part being positioned at either end of the last squeeze. Here the delivery person needs to lift himself, with the bag above, up into the aven, and then shuffle the bag forwards through the squeeze at full reach, whilst the receiving person drops committingly headfirst into the squeeze to reach it, making sure that he doesn’t go too far in or else the only way to escape would be to attempt the full squeeze down and out, a manoeuvre not yet attempted for good reason! Me and Dave lead the way through and once we’d got our bags through we bravely decided to leave the others to work it out whilst we go rigging!
Arriving at the window that we discovered last trip was something I had been desperate to do for the last 8 days, and it was as good as I remembered. Whilst the others caught up I bolted two y-hangs (one to ease getting up the window, and one to get down the other side) and rigged the rope, ensuring it reached the bottom. However to save gear beyond Pilgrims Way I was sharing Dave’s SRT kit, so I let him go down first (although I was very tempted just to classic abseil down before he got there!). Simon and Luke both went down ahead of me before I could get Dave’s kit back up and strapped to me.
This actually worked out brilliantly for me, as I could sit in the window and watch with a bird’s eye view my team of hard working, late night cavers split up and run around exploring the chamber. Cries back of “It’s not an alcove it’s a passage” and “Wow, that aven’s high” surprisingly didn’t drum up any feeling of jealousy, instead more feelings of pride for us fortunate Eldon cavers. Of course I very quickly got on the rope before smelly SUSS could get down there… :-)
So, the import news, what did we find?
The 6m pitch is in a 2m wide rift, at this point 8m high and ~17m long. Right (SE) heads up a short slope into the base of a wider section of rift, with a large aven reaching up 15m to a blind roof. Carrying on passes a small tube above head height which doesn’t go anywhere, and eventually leads to a tricky 3m thrutch up. The rift passage continues above for 7m before ending in a totally silted up sump. A small amount of water issues out of this sump, and it may be worth spending a trip or two here with a shovel.
Back at the pitch heading the other way (NW) quickly leads up a loose bolder slope to the base of a 5m vertical continuation of said boulder choke! Dave and Brendan were suitably cautious when climbing this, as it would be very unwise to cause these big rocks to move. Shortly follows another similar climb, at the top of which the character of the cave changes slightly. It’s wider (+3m) and the 5m high roof slopes up at a similar degree as the boulder sloping floor. If horizontal this would be a mammoth passage! After 18m the dimensions increase again as you realise your now stood in the base of a large chamber 10m wide, 20m long and 30m high. Whilst the proportions are impressive, the hilarious feature is that it is all still sloping up at 45°, like a “half funnel” with a constantly altering boulder floor! Simon attempted some photos in here, so with luck we'll be able to show you all how awesome this chamber is. In the roof lurk 3 good looking avens to climb, and at the back is a muddy tube that may lead somewhere with a bit of digging. The climbs were rigged to ease the route up and down the slope, however it still remains a very dodgy place. It was in everyone’s mind how bad it would be to have a serious accident here.
Luke and Brendan headed out, with Simon following shortly after, whilst me and Dave finished off the survey, tieing it in with the Crusader survey me and Luke complete a few weeks ago. For me it’s such a great feeling completing that last tie-in and pressing Save, knowing that the information on this PDA will be added to the Castleton Master survex document and studied in detail for years to come.
Heading out we meet up with a cold Simon, who’d managed to get confused of the “new” route out, and rather risk getting lost and then left behind, he waited for us for 40 minutes. Definitely a good call. Progress out was slow for us all, pulling the entrance pitch rope up at 3am. However the sense of success and achievement was high and I’m sure it won’t be long before we return soon….
So, survey figures to date. We've discovered 213m of new passage, with a vertical range of 60m. Not bad for less than 3 hours digging!